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Historians say one of the big new things 100 years ago was the expansion of shopping.

One of today's biggest shopping web sites, of course, is eBay. But eBay's newest acquisitions have nothing to do with physical tangible "stuff." eBay has acquired PayPal, the online payment service; and Skype, the voice-over-the-internet online telephone service.

Which raises today's question, NineShifters: what do you think the future of shopping for "stuff" is? Will people be buying tangible goods as much as they do today, or are younger people purchasing more intangible services and experiences, and "stuff" is on the way out? Your thoughts: : :

This month the first train in the U.S. added wireless Internet connections. The train goes from San Jose to San Francisco, and the wireless connections were installed by a British company called Nomad.

And add Pittsburgh to your tabulation of the cities going wireless in the entire downtown area. Like the light-rail snowball, the wireless avalanche is rolling downhill and appears unstoppable. My teenage friend Landon raises the only question: should people have to pay for it, or should it be a free municipal service (the kids vote for free)? What do you think?

Like showing up on time. Legislators are intent on making it a law that schools teach showing up on time in school.

Not only is showing up on time not a problem, this "timeless" value actually was important only in the last century. Before then only rich people had watches. But in the last century the factory needed timely workers.

Today, not only is showing up on time not necessary, most kids will not even show up - - they will telecommute and just log on. "These are common values, permeated through society," maintains Sen Tarryl Clark, obviously out of touch with kids. The show-up-on-time or else imperative is part of "character education," something they taught not in the last century, but the century before that.

Adults continue to dodge the real issues with education, like addressing student dissatisfaction that school is boring and not challenging enough. Easier to punish kids for not showing up on time than teaching them. Teachers will make sure they are not subject to the same character education (every time I teach, teachers show up late).

Well, last week Julie and I went to downtown St. Paul to see a few lofts for sale.

The light rail will soon go into downtown, ending at Union Depot. High speed rail advocates want the trains to stop there too. So all the buildings in the neighborhood have huge construction activity as builders create lofts and condominiums for sale. We put on hard hats and toured the half-finished buildings.

What struck me about these 1,000 square foot one room lofts is how little material goods one can have. There's no place to put "stuff." Am thinking people will, by necessity or desire, switch their spending from tangible goods (no place to put them) to experiences, whether online or in physical reality. The move back into downtown is going on full speed. Quite exciting, this little glimpse into the not-so-distant future. What do you think about the move downtown?

Remember how Henry Ford doubled his workers' wages and was villified as a traitor to his (thebusiness) class? Jim Sinegal could be that 21st century man.

While WalMart and Target are griping about paying their workers $10 an hour (see my August 11 post), Costco pays its employees 60% more than Walmart and still makes a profit. The average non-management employee at Costco, including part-timers, make $17 an hour plus benefits including health care.

Robyn Blumner (photo) a St. Petersburg Times columnist, writes a great column about it. She says Jim Sinegal, Costco's chief executive, founded this huge company yet makes only $450,000 a year. He's rich, of course, but not obscenely rich, and still only owns less than 1% of the company, almost unheard of for a founder. Blumner writes: "As he has explained it, part of his philosophy is to maintain a reasonable relationship between his compensation and that of average workers."

Restoring some balance in the pay equity between managers and workers has to happen (NineShift predicts it will happen) to regaining a middle class and prosperous society for the 21st century.

This column, in fact the whole premise of NineShift, has nothing to do with politics.

With this caveat, we approach the whole historical parallel (or not) between the decline of the British Empire 100 years ago, and the troubling warning signs that America is repeating it today.

On our trip to England earlier this year, one of my acquired treasures was E.J. Hobsbawn's classic book on "The Age of Empire: 1876 - 1914." Following World War I, the British Empire effectively disappeared, if slowly. It took until 1950 for the Brits themselves to realize it was all over. But it ended in 1914.

By 1914 the Germans had invented the auto, and created Mercedes, etc. The French had invented motion pictures and were dominant. And the Brits ruled the world. All three countries, but especially the Brits - - who actually "won" WWI - - lost their world dominance after WWI to the U.S. They had invested (wasted) so much in WWI they simply could not recover.

SO, it was interesting that in a recent issue of The New Yorker Magazine, David Remnick, in a column about Lebanon-Palestine-Iraq-Afganistan-Iran (let's leave out Venezuela-Cuba-Bolivia for a moment) wrote, "Some observers speak forebodingly of 1914....."

There's no question we are repeating the history of 100 years ago. The question is, which history - - that of the US in the 20th century (ultimate success) or England (decline of world dominance)? Your thoughts welcome (or come over for tea at 4 pm): :

Maybe just coincidence, but the next news story was a feeble defense by some advertising exec saying that "interruptive" ads (TV, radio, newspaper) are transitioning to "attractive" ads (web sites, etc.). All this trying to explain the dominance of viral marketing among Generation Y. Viral marketing is essentially word-of-mouth, now called peer-to-peer or "friends telling friends." Always a big factor in product promotion, apparently Gen Y doesn't buy corporate advertising at all. Instead they ask their friends what's up. Keep an eye on viral marketing. It could be another signal that traditional corporations either a) aren't what they used to be; or b) will have to develop a new approach to the new generation. Post your "ad" as a comment: :

My brother drives by the corporate campus of Best Buy. He has been wondering why, in the middle of the day, the employee parking lot at this huge complex, seems empty. He heard the answer July 19 on NPR (thanks Robin!).

Best Buy is sending its employees home to work. They have discovered (yes, it's true) that telecommuters are more productive than office workers. Don Eliot of Baltimore also heard the story and sent NineShift the link (thanks Don!) to the NPR interview.

NineShift long ago predicted that around 2010 the Fortune 500 companies would start sending their workers home. Best Buy is one of those ahead of the curve. Do you know of any other corporations sending workers home or encouraging telecommuting?

Chicago (bless them) City Council passed an ordinance last month requiring Walmart and other big box stores to pay $10 an hour by 2010.

A few points:* Walmart is one of the richest corporations in America, yet they are so skimpy their own employees cannot even afford health insurance and in our state the biggest tax subsidy for health care goes to Walmart employees.* $10 an hour, with those profits? Come on, if you want to do business in Chicago (and you don't have to build stores there) you should pay a decent wage.

Walmart keeps on earning its image as the poster-boy for corporate greed and stinginess. The big news: we're starting to see a little move to paying higher wages in the 21st century.Hopefully restoring the middle class and the balance in inequality of wealth (a little). Nice job Chicago aldermen and alderwomen.

So, a kid I know rode his bike into a Walmart store recently and rode up and down the aisles...

actually, it's such a good story I'll interrupt my posting on Walmart to tell you about it.

It was a Critical Mass bicycle "protest" in Winona, Minnesota. About 100 bicycle folks rode their bikes up and down the Walmart aisles, in a joint protest over cars and Walmart policies. Nobody hurt, no damage done. They chanted: